That does not mean it would have succeeded without the Google acquisition

https://www.nearmap.com/ was another one that google looked at, before buying the other mob that became maps.google.com. They are also Australian.

It depends what you mean by successful I guess, but nearmap fits my definition of successful. Far better more and detailed maps that google, sold to people who needs such things rather than being used as platform to sell advertising.

In the beginning they used to have an honour system that allowed everyone to view their maps for free. They merely requested people who used it commercially to to purchase access. I gather that didn't work out, or maybe it was just a way of ensuring everybody knew about their product as there is no free access now. but while it was free it was great for checking when roof gutters needed cleaning, comparing flood levels and that sort of thing.

The commercial value proposition of Maps is its applications to advertising - as a platform, and as meta data that informs Google where users are, which provides context for what ad they might click on next.